The Stock(inette) Market: June 18th-July 14th

Would you look at that--I think we're actually caught up on the Stock(inette) Market! There were some amazing publications this past month, with some interesting and unexpected results in the numbers.  Let's take a look!

One note on last time's Average Percentage: I had mistakenly based the chart on only those categories that had averaged more than 1 appearance per data collection, rather than factoring in an "other" for the remaining categories.  It's been amended to reflect this; the dominoes in this fell most on neck accessories, dropping them from 51% to 47%.  While they still dominate this month, they have a slightly smaller percentage at 46%.  Cardigans have crept up from 14 to 15%, due to a heavy presence in many of the publications this month.  There were also more categories represented this time around, with men's patterns making the cut-off for the first time due to the release of Brooklyn Tweed's Men's collection and Martin Storey's book with Rowan, Pioneer.

Neck accessories had some major peaks throughout the month, corresponding both to the release of several publications (in the beginning of the month, Grace Anna Farrow and Kelbourne Woolen's collaboration on their new lace-weight yarn Meadow, Allium; and at the end of June and beginning of July, the release of the latest patterns in Romi Hill's Seven Small Shawls, Year 3) and organically (the spike on June 27th).  There were also small organic spikes near the end of the month as well.  One of these occurred due to Maylin's decision to turn Wingspan into a for-sale pattern instead of a free download; it and many of its descendants (and a few copycats) climbed back to the first page.

Cardigans and pullovers also had a few major spikes, occurring with the release of Knitscene's Fall 2013 preview and the spate of Rowan releases the first week in July (Rowan 54, Summer Selects Online Collection, Autumn Knits, and Pioneer), all of which were heavily geared towards garments.  BT Men's was also geared towards garments, and caused the obvious spike in men's garments seen around July 10th.  While both cardigans and pullovers were well represented throughout the month, the former rose as time went on, while the latter fell.  All other categories remained relatively steady.

 

Yarn type remained consistent with what we've seen in the past; semi-solids dominated, with a big spike in late June helped along by the release of Amy Miller's collaboration with the Plucky Knitter, The Little Collection.  There were also smaller organic spikes throughout the month, tied to Knitscene and Romi Hill's new collection.  Solids had a large spike with Rowan's Summer Selects and a smaller one with Carol Feller's new collection, Among Stones, but otherwise dropped over the month.  There was a small spike of tweed during the BT Men's collection, and two- and three-color projects had prominence as stranded colorwork in the Rowan releases and as stripes in Amy Miller's collection.  Variegated yarns were not present in large numbers at all this month.

The modeled categories remained steady, with modeled garments seeing a large spike due to Knitscene at the end of June and the Rowan releases around the 4th of July.  They had a sharp organic drop at the end of the time period, however, corresponding with a rise in dressforms.

 Fabric type was wildly variable this time around, with no clear winner.  While lace has been continually and clearly dominant in the past, this time there were major spikes in texture (Autumn Knits, Pioneer, and BT Men's), colorwork (Rowan 54 and Summer Selects), and stockinette (The Little Collection, BT Men's).  There were lace spikes to correspond with Knitscene Fall and Romi Hill's release, and an organic spike at the very end of the time period, but lace fell overall.  There was also a slight drop in colorwork once the Rowan patterns made their way off the front page.  Cables rose steadily, with spikes occurring for Knitscene and BT Men's; as we're seeing the first of the fall publications, we can surmise that these may be rising to fit seasonal trends.

Colors again were incredibly variable, with major spikes in reds (organic), greys (Rowan and BT Men's), and blues (BT Men's).  Red did drop sharply after its major spike at the end of June, but rose again organically at the very end of the month.  Green, white, yellow, and black rose slightly, and purple, brown, and orange stayed constant. 

Overall, a very volatile month--we had what seems to be the tail end of the light, lacy spring patterns and the very first of the textural and cabled fall patterns.  It will be interesting to see how this develops over the next month!